At least 33 people, 29 of them Taliban militants, were killed and 18 others, including a Nato soldier, injured in two newly reported incidents in south-eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. A group of Taliban attacked an Afghan Local Police checkpoint in Ghazni province Saturday morning. It was the second Taliban attack in less than 24 hours, coming just after the group targeted a UN-affiliated organisation in the capital, Kabul.
"Some 30 to 40 Taliban insurgents attacked a local police checkpoint at 05:30 am (0100 GMT) in Gilan district and started firing at police," Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy provincial governor said. "Additional troops were immediately dispatched to the area and the Taliban retreated after four-and-a-half hours of fighting with police, army and the international forces," Ahmadi told dpa, adding that 21 insurgents were killed and 17 injured. Also dead was the commander of the local police, identified as Sakhidad. A Nato soldier, likely a US citizen, was listed as wounded.
The fighting was over by 10 am (0500 GMT) and the area is now under control, Ahmadi added. Separately, on Friday night, eight Taliban fighters were killed when explosives they intended to place inside a mosque in Andar district went off, Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior said. "The incident also took the lives of three civilians and injured four others," Sediqqi told reporters, blaming the militants for using mosques as "their military posts and hiding explosive materials inside the mosques." The day before, eight people - including five militants - were killed in a 10-hour attack upon the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).